The Lusty Month Of May

Spring in Vermont doesn’t show up the way it does in some other states with their quiet unveiling of green in the month of April. Here we diddle with mud and brown and snow for about two months, vacillating between boots and Crocs: Mother Nature seemingly unsure about the exact season to put us into. But May swaggers in with flourish tossing its floral cape over one shoulder with panache.

It seems everything is in a hurry in May. Warm weather, a priceless commodity in a cold climate, makes us all know this time is limited. Paul just dragged our splitter into place near the woodshed for the season: summer being one long preparation for winter. As the days warm you might find us swimming in the heat of the day and splitting wood in bathing suits as the air cools into evening.

Early in the month only the bravest of bulbs peek their heads out of the cold soil. Daffodils foolishly flap back and forth in the breezes, risking being crushed by a late season frost. The ground sits cold and silent, holding tight to itself like us wrapped in our wool blanket. But as we step into the middle weeks of the month the party begins. The blue of the sky deepens and the temperatures soar. May sunlight is brilliant even at our house in the woods. The tree buds, fat, succulent but waiting, allow the light to pour down on the countless flats of vegetables we have started on the deck. By afternoon, when the sun and temps are high, tiny leaves will begin to cast their shadows. I glance out the front windows and am startled by the sudden appearance and brilliance of the green. Somehow my memory was frozen and I have forgotten.

With the unfurling always come the bugs. One day we can open windows to catch spring fragrances, the next we must spend vacuuming screens and carefully locking them into place. May flies appear out of nowhere and mate on the warm hood of our black car. I sit on the edge of the deck, catch a low frequency hum and turn to find an enormously fat bumblebee perusing my red tulips. So round she is wobbly in her flight, but manages, insatiable, to veer into the top of the flower. In the mornings, out the window, I watch gray squirrels stiffly twitch their tails and chase each other up and down tree trunks. Brightly colored male birds frantically hopping from branch to branch following the allure of the duller colored females. The peepers mating calls rise up from the watershed, almost deafening from their tiny competition. Like Noah’s ark- everyone is in pairs.

We creak open the gate of the garden and see new raspberry canes pushing past last year’s. We drag out tomato buckets and brown paper bags stuffed with seed packets. We hopefully rake the leaves to one side of the asparagus beds waiting for them to wake up. A milk snake lies along the stone wall carefully watching the puppy racing past. Peas and potatoes will tolerate surprising cold so they are first to go into the ground. We tie twine around the corners of our bamboo trellis and then stand back to admire our first efforts. Things look tidy. Barren, but begun.

The sheep stand at the top of the hill looking down at us working in the garden. Periodically one will call out, reminding us that the grass really is greener on the other side. The pasture is coming but won’t be ready for nibbles until the stalks are blowing in the wind.

Even this early the earth begins to give. We fill clear bags with ramps and make butter and pesto for the top of new asparagus spears. I find my secret spot where we always pick fiddle heads and we fill silver bowls with them, dark green and curled tight like the scroll of a cello. In the corner of our garden the rhubarb bursts forth, skinny stalks will soon thicken and be ready for pies and summer sauces. Bags filled with them make neighbors smile and pucker.

We take evening walks in the twilight and hear the bell-like call of the Hermit Thrush from deep in our woods. In response to all of the burgeoning mating and sensuality we anxiously find the first open ice cream shop, choose our favorite and watch the teenagers, with their newly exposed spring skin, buzz around each other as well in this, the lusty month of May.

The birds and the bees, with all of their vast, amorous past, gaze at the human race – aghast. (Alan Jay Lerner, Camelot, 1960)